by Neil Smith
BOOK III: THE GOLDEN FLEECE
Medea
All the bravado displayed by Jason’s warriors while settling down in the shadow of Colchis did not fool Hera and Athena. They knew that Aeëtes ruled his kingdom despotically, and that neither taking the Fleece by force, nor persuasion, guaranteed Jason ultimate success. The goddesses therefore drew apart from the rest of the gods, so that they too could ponder and discuss possible winning strategies. After a while, Hera looked up from her brooding and suggested they ask Aphrodite, the goddess of love, to ask her son Eros to make Medea, the daughter of Aeëtes, fall in love with Jason. Athena liked the plan, though she was unsure how it would work. Nevertheless, the two set off with firm resolve to find Aphrodite.
Medea by José Daniel Cabrera Peña.
Jason and the Bulls. According to Appollonius, the bulls that Jason used to plow the fields had bronze hooves and snorted fire. Later writers have sometimes taken this one step further and depicted the bulls as either creatures of living bronze or even as fully mechanical constructs.
Aphrodite was still making herself ready for the day, when Hera and Athena entered her chambers, and she was none too pleased to see them. She ‘welcomed’ the goddesses with sarcasm and reproach, because they were not frequent visitors. Hera persevered, however, telling Aphrodite that the final stage of the quest for the Golden Fleece was about to happen, and that she was afraid that Jason might fail without help. Hera added how Jason had earned her patronage through his good deeds, and that she would do whatever she could to honour him and punish King Pelias. Moved by such an appeal, Aphrodite opened her arms to Hera, offering whatever assistance was needed. Hera replied that she wanted Eros to fire his magic arrow into Medea’s heart, causing her to fall in love with Jason, and thereby solicit her aid for him in the dangerous tasks he was about to face. Aphrodite was sceptical that her rebellious boy would help, but agreed to ask him. Hera and Athena, their mission successful, left Aphrodite to track down her son.
Eros was in the orchard of Zeus, playing dice with Ganymede, the innocent and beautiful boy whom Zeus had brought to live with the gods. Eros showed Ganymede little respect, however, so that when Aphrodite walked in on them playing, he was taking the last of some golden dice from the hapless child. Ganymede left sullenly, leaving a very happy Eros looking up into the concerned face of his mother. She chided him for his gloating, but promised him a golden ball if he would perform the task she had in mind. The greedy Eros begged for his gift immediately. Aphrodite stood firm, however, and kissed Eros into submission. He therefore willingly picked up his bow and quiver of arrows, and set off down through the heavens to carry out Aphrodite’s wishes. Thus the goddesses had done their part to help recover the Golden Fleece, now it would be up to Jason and his crew of heroes to complete the task.
Aeëtes
The Argonauts knew nothing, of course, about the schemes of the gods. As they sat in their ship, hidden amongst the foliage along the riverbank, they had their own problems to consider. Jason chose this moment, however, to finally stamp his authority on the expedition. He addressed his crew, putting forward the argument that, rather than employing force, he and the sons of Phrixus should go to meet with Aeëtes, and see if he would give up the Fleece through friendship and in recognition of Zeus’s will.
The Argonauts agreed unanimously, so Jason and the brothers, along with Telamon and Augeas, set out for Aeëtes’s palace. On the way, they passed countless willow trees bearing corpses bound with cords and wrapped in untanned ox-hides, because Colchians neither buried nor cremated their dead. As Hera watched the small group approach, she spread a thick mist through the city, so that they could reach the palace unhindered.
Jason and his party stared in wonder at the palace complex as they walked through the gates with the fog that had swirled around them now dissipating. Columns were revealed, standing in orderly lines along the walls, interspersed with vines and foliage in full bloom. Four fountains gushed nearby, one each of oil, milk, wine, and water, and all four crafted by Hephaestus, blacksmith to the gods. Buildings and chambers surrounded the inner court of the palace. Aeëtes and his queen, Eidyia, occupied the tallest building, while his son Apsyrtus lived in a similar tower nearby. Aeëtes’s daughters, Chalciope and Medea, also lived in separate towers close to their mother.
Medea’s position as priestess of the goddess Hecate meant that she had spent that morning working in the temple. She was out looking for her sister, however, when she first caught sight of the strangers. Her cry of surprise brought Chalciope and her handmaidens running. Chalciope was overjoyed to see her sons and rushed to greet them. Aeëtes and Eidyia and the rest of the household soon arrived to investigate the commotion. None of them, however, saw another unexpected guest flitting through the last tendrils of Hera’s mist.
The unseen visitor was Eros on his mission for Aphrodite. He hung back in a doorway where he could clearly see his target. Eros strung his bow, nocked an arrow, and – too rapidly for the human eye to see – darted up to Jason’s side before letting his arrow fly and retreating, leaving behind only a soft echo of laughter. Eros’s arrow struck Medea in the heart, rendering her speechless and burning with love for Jason. No one around her noticed the arrow’s effect on Medea, because they were too busy preparing warm baths and a banquet to celebrate the return of the brothers.
The Golden Fleece by José Daniel Cabrera Peña.
When everyone was rested and refreshed, Aeëtes asked his grandsons why they had returned and who were their companions. The brothers exchanged nervous glances, fearing how Aeëtes would take their news. It was left to Argos, as the eldest brother, to reply to Aeëtes’s questions. He told the king how their ship wrecked off the island of Ares, where they met Jason and his Argonauts on the beach. Jason took them in, he continued, providing clothes and food, for which they were grateful, and in return they agreed to accompany Jason to the city. Plunging on with his story, Argos narrated Jason’s mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece, and how the gods had helped them to this point. He added that the crew were the sons and grandsons of the immortals.
Aeëtes listened intently, but with increasing anger, as Argos told his story. Then the king could contain his wrath no longer. He ordered the brothers out of his sight and out of Colchis for good. Aeëtes accused them of plotting not to steal the Fleece but his crown, and that if they had not eaten as guests he would have had their tongues hacked out and hands chopped off to prevent them telling more lies against the gods. A defiant Argos made to reply, but Jason stepped forward and hushed him. He turned to Aeëtes and tried to persuade the king that this mission was genuine.
Jason offered, by way of recompense, to have his crew fight as mercenaries at the king’s will, if he so desired, in return for the Fleece. Aeëtes, having already decided on his course of action, all but ignored Jason’s pleading. He said that Jason could have the Fleece, if he proved himself more courageous than the king. To do that, continued Aeëtes, Jason would have to complete two tasks that Aeëtes himself had already performed. The first was to yoke two fire-breathing bulls, and plough the Plain of Ares. If he managed that, Jason was to sow the teeth of a dragon, and, when they grew out of the ground and became armed soldiers, he was to kill them all. If Jason did all that in one day, Aeëtes concluded, he could take the Golden Fleece.
Jason stood in stunned silence at the magnitude of the challenge before him. He had little choice but to accept, of course, to which Aeëtes told him to go and make himself ready for the next day’s trials.
Lively Debate
Jason left with Augeias, Telamon, and Argos, leaving the other brothers behind with their mother. Medea watched them leave, filled with passion for Jason, and increasingly distraught over what might happen to him, before she too left to go to her chambers. Argos walked with Jason along the path leading to the ship. He asked Jason not to be offended by what he was about to say, but that he knew of his aunt Medea’s skills as a sorceress, and that she could help with the t
asks, but he feared she might not. Argos then offered to approach his mother to ask Medea for her assistance.
Jason and the Earthborn Men. The origin of the dragon’s teeth in the story of Jason and the Argonauts has often been a source of confusion. The teeth sown by Jason do not come from the dragon guarding the Golden Fleece, but instead come from the Dragon of Ares, slain by the hero Cadmus. After Cadmus killed the dragon, he removed its teeth. Half of these he gave to the goddess Athena, who carried them off to Colchis. The other half he sowed into the earth, growing his own crop of earthborn men. These men battled amongst themselves until the survivors joined Cadmus and helped him found the city of Thebes.
Far from being insulted, Jason urged Argos to speak to her, even though it was shameful to accept help from women for what should be a warrior’s work. The rest of the Argonauts prevented Argos’s immediate reply by surrounding Jason, when he arrived back at the ship. Jason told them of Aeëtes’s rage and the tasks that he had agreed to undertake. The crew’s clamorous greeting suddenly fell silent as the shock of Jason’s words set in.
Peleus broke the silence. He knew that Jason would undertake the tasks, but if he had any doubts then Peleus would willingly replace Jason in the contest. Telamon also stepped in to say he would do it, as did Idas, and Castor and Polydeuces, and finally the youthful Meleager. Argos spoke to the volunteers, pointing out that it was better if they did not throw their lives away needlessly. He added that, with their permission, he would return to the palace and beg his mother to seek the assistance of Medea and her skills as a sorceress.
Suddenly, a dove fell from the sky into Jason’s lap, pursued by a hawk that could not pull out of its dive – and which impaled itself on the stern ornament of the Argo. Mopsus, who divined prophecies from birds, leapt up to tell the men that this was surely a favourable sign from the gods, and that it was as Phineas foretold about the help a goddess would give them. The Argonauts nodded their approval, all except Idas, who was incensed that they should allow mere women to save them.
The crew looked to Jason, but he had already decided that Argos should leave immediately on his mission. He compromised, however, by saying that it was not right for them to hide the Argo in a backwater, and that they must move the ship out into the open. Argos left immediately while the Argonauts took up their oars to relocate the Argo.
Jason plows the field in front of King Aeëtes and the rest of the Argonauts.
The Treacherous King
While Jason and his crew considered their options down by the river, Aeëtes addressed a hastily arranged assembly of Colchians, with treachery in mind. He promised that when the bulls ripped apart whoever was sent to attempt the challenges, he would burn the ship and the crew in it for their arrogance. The Argonauts, he continued, were nothing but pirates, and deserved to be treated as such. The brothers who had brought them here, he thundered, would be sent into exile. To that end, he would keep the ship under surveillance until the moment came to unleash his vengeance.
Argos, meanwhile, approached the palace with some trepidation to speak to Chalciope, who was busy fretting over the possible fate of her four sons at the hands of their vengeful father.
Medea slept fitfully in her chamber, away from the swirl of events surrounding the palace. She dreamed that Jason had come for her, not for the Fleece, and that she would be asked to choose between her father and her future husband. In her dream, she chose the latter, to the anguish of Aeëtes, who cried out, waking Medea from her sleep. Although deeply troubled, she resolved to ask Chalciope to help with the tests.
Medea put on her robe and crept out of her chamber, but she could not bring herself to enter Chalciope’s room. Three times she tried, before giving in and returning to throw herself down on her bed, torn between love and duty. A passing handmaiden saw Medea and rushed to Chalciope to tell her of her sister’s distress. Her intervention proved timely because the handmaiden found Chalciope sitting with her sons, discussing how to win Medea over to their side in the impending showdown with Aeëtes.
Chalciope rushed over to Medea’s room and asked her what was wrong; was she sick or had she heard of some plan by Aeëtes against Chalciope and her sons? Medea could not reveal her feelings for Jason, as that would be a shameful, and potentially fatal, confession. She replied, therefore, that she was worried about what Aeëtes might do to the brothers. Medea waited with bated breath for her sister to speak.
Fear gripped Chalciope and she begged Medea to find some way to help them all, but she insisted that, whether or not she could help, Medea must keep their plans secret. Medea said she wanted to help but did not know how. Chalciope then asked Medea to assist Jason in the contests and revealed that Argos had arrived to appeal for their help. Now that Chalciope had furnished her with a viable excuse to help Jason, Medea pledged herself to her sister’s cause, and promised to be at Hecate’s temple at dawn with a charm that would work on the bulls.
When Chalciope left, however, Medea’s despair over agreeing to help her father’s enemy flooded back. Night fell, but still Medea could not sleep for worrying. She possessed the skills and craft to protect Jason from the bulls, but she could not see how to do it without alerting the king, nor how she would greet Jason, if she ever would. Aeëtes would have her executed if he suspected treachery, but that would be no release from her disgrace because her name would forever be synonymous with treason. Medea even contemplated suicide before her infatuation caused her ruin.
She fetched her box of potions, deciding which one would work best to end it all. The watching Hera had seen enough and planted horrifying thoughts of the underworld in Medea’s mind, followed by more hopeful images of friends and everything life had to offer. Medea stopped crying at this revelation and put away her box, except for the potions she needed to help Jason. Fortified by her determination to save the man she now loved, Medea could not wait for the sun to rise.
Medea prepared herself to venture out just as the first rays of dawn touched the palace. She dressed in a beautiful robe with a silver veil over her golden hair, while her skin shone with sweet ointment. She carried a potion called the Charm of Prometheus in her belt, made from the sap of a particular flower that grew in the Caucasus, and which, once spread on a man, would protect him from fire. With all in readiness, Medea called for her twelve handmaidens to attend her and make her chariot ready for the journey to the temple. The handmaidens yoked the mules, then Medea mounted the chariot, with two maidens on each side. Medea, reins in one hand and whip in the other, sped along through the town.
When they arrived at the temple, Medea addressed her handmaidens. She told them of her mission that morning and how they would be rewarded if they kept her secret. When Jason arrived at the temple, though, they were to stand back and not interfere. In the meantime, they would sing to keep their spirits up and while away the time. The handmaidens readily agreed to Medea’s plan.
Argos left his brothers keeping watch and returned to the ship. When they witnessed Medea leaving the city, the brothers ran down to the ship to inform Argos of her departure. Argos pulled Jason quickly to his side, to take him to the temple of Hecate. Mopsus went with them to offer his assistance with any oracles they might hear, either on their journey or when they got there. It was just as well he did because along the path stood a shrine next to a poplar tree, where a crow clapped its wings and began to speak in a language only Mopsus could interpret. The bird told Mopsus that Jason must go on alone to meet Medea, so he and Argos held back, telling Jason they would wait and not to worry because Hera watched over him. Jason walked on alone.
Singing could not calm Medea’s nerves. Her eyes wandered to the path whenever she thought she heard footsteps. After frequent false alarms, Jason finally appeared, striding purposefully forward. Medea stood transfixed, blushing intensely and almost blinded by the sight of the hero marching towards her. Still she could not move when Jason arrived and faced her, despite the handmaidens stepping back to give them room.
A
shot of Tim Severin’s crew as they row their modern Argo. (Top Foto)
Jason told Medea that she had no need to be afraid of him, and that he needed her help. He added that if he succeeded and returned safely with his crew, she would be a heroine to all Greece, and would receive the thanks of the gods. Medea did not answer, but instead handed over the potion, much to the delight of Jason. After another soulful pause, Medea finally addressed the man with whom she was completely besotted. The potion only worked if Jason followed her strict instructions, she told him. When he received the dragon’s teeth from Aeëtes, he was to bathe at midnight in the stream of the nearby sacred river. Then, without any witnesses, he should dig a round pit in which he was to sacrifice a ewe to Hecate. After his dedication, Jason must cover himself in honey then retreat from the sacrificial pyre without looking back. At dawn, he must apply the potion all over. If he did all that, Jason would be like a god, impervious to spears and flame, but only for one day. Medea continued that when he sowed the dragon’s teeth and the earthbound warriors sprang up, Jason should throw a large rock amongst them so that they would fight amongst themselves. Jason would then be free to take the Fleece and return home.
Medea had one more request: she asked Jason to remember her even though he would be far away, wherever he may be. Jason replied that of course he would, but that he hoped Aeëtes would come around to becoming friends for her sake. That was not the answer Medea was looking for. She scoffed at Jason’s optimism regarding her father, then promised that she would find out if he forgot her, and visit him in Iolcus to remind him who was responsible for his survival.